BAYONNE – It was a typical Monday morning when the O’Donnell family began their work and school week.
Pam left for work in one car, her husband Tim and two young daughters followed behind in a separate car. Ali and Bridget waved to their mom from the backseat. Pam turned left, Tim turned right.
It was the last moment the family shared together.
One year after the Feb. 22 crash that killed Tim O’Donnell, a beloved County Prep High School teacher, and his 5-year-old daughter Bridget, the grieving mother and wife recalls the day her family of four became a family of two at the hands of an alleged drugged driver.
The father and daughter were approaching the 14C toll plaza on the New Jersey Turnpike’s Hudson County Extension in Jersey City on a clear, sunny day when their Chevrolet Malibu was rear-ended by 36-year-old Scott Hahn’s 1998 Mercedes-Benz. The Hamilton resident was charged with their deaths when he allegedly admitted to authorities he took 10 Adderall and hadn’t slept in over a day.
One year later, some days are harder than others for Pam and Ali.
On most holidays the widowed mother spends time walking the bases on local softball fields – the same fields where Tim helped mold young athletes as a softball coach at County Prep and Hudson Catholic. Her husband may not physically be by her side, but it’s on those fields she feels closest to him.
With an outpouring of support from the community, the mother and daughter are getting by day to day, spreading the message of the deadly effects of distracted driving.
‘WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FAMILY?’
Tim and Bridget O’Donnell were killed in a crash on the New Jersey Turnpike on Feb. 22, 2016. Michael Dempsey | The Jersey Journal
Tim picked up Bridget from a pre-K program in Bayonne every day and brought her a preschool program inside County Prep on his lunch break. After school, the two would drive to pick Ali up from the Walter F. Robinson Community School before heading home.
Pam O’Donnell was sitting at her desk at her job in Rutherford when she received a call from Jersey City Medical Center saying that her family may have been in a car crash.
“I anticipated one of them being dead,” she recalled. “I never anticipated both of them being dead.”
She fell to the floor at the real estate business where she worked. The woman from the hospital said a car was coming to pick her up, but she still wasn’t sure what happened.
“I was just laying on the floor screaming, ‘What happened to my family? Somebody help me.'”
Within minutes detectives were at her job ready to bring her to the hospital. Tim was pronounced dead at the scene and Bridget was brought to the hospital, where doctors did everything they could to try to save her.
‘THEY HAD TO GO TO HEAVEN’
When she first got back to her house, O’Donnell remembers almost getting angry. Tim had done the laundry and the clothes were sitting folded on a table waiting to be put away.
She had nothing left that smelled of her husband.
Dozens of people filed into the O’Donnell house that night. When Ali came home, O’Donnell’s friends and family suggested they not tell her what happened just yet.
“I couldn’t lie to her,” Pam said. “What was I going to do? What was I going to say?”
The two went into the mother’s bedroom where Ali asked where her father and sister were.
“Daddy and Bridget are not coming home,” Pam tried to explain to the 6-year-old Ali, who then asked whether Tim and Bridget were simply stuck in traffic.
O’Donnell told her daughter they were in a car crash. Ali cried and screamed until she fell asleep in her mother’s arms, Pam recalls. “I said they had to go to heaven and they’re not coming home.”
Tim was a careful, diligent driver. He never picked up his phone behind the wheel and always had his eyes on the road. Pam knew something had to have gone wrong because it was a “beautiful sunny day.”
Ali went to school the next day and Pam spoke with NBC about the crash, hoping she would be able to thank the community for the outpouring of support. She learned Hahn was charged in the deadly crash when she watched the segment on the evening news.
‘WE’RE A WORK IN PROGRESS’
Ali, 7, holds the picture of her father and sister that her mother, Pam O’Donnell, keeps in her car. Caitlin Mota | The Jersey Journal
While their everyday routines are different, little has changed around their home.
Bridget and Ali’s room has stayed the same and Tim’s belongings are still in the home. The mother and daughter decided to paint Pam’s the same color as Bridget’s eyes: blue.
Both Pam and Ali have Bridget and Tim’s fingerprints engraved on a necklace. Bridget’s picture hangs from O’Donnell’s neck and she often wears her husband’s shirts. A photo of the two is always in her car, Pam said.
Meanwhile, the community has rallied around the mother and daughter after the tragedy on the Turnpike, raising thousands of dollars on a GoFundMe page, bringing food over to their house, and lending a helping hand in any way possible.
Value City Furniture donated a curio cabinet that now houses Tim and Bridget’s ashes inside the O’Donnell home. It’s with this support, Pam said, that her family has been able to make it through their first year of heartbreak.
It’s been with help from the community, friends, and family that she and her mother two get by each day.
“We’re a work in progress,” Pam said.
Ali and Bridget were best friends. She said she misses watching movies – like “Hotel Transylvania” and “Frozen” – with her little sister.
The Fusion Baton Twirlers team – a program that she and Bridget once enjoyed together — has also provided an outlet and become a second family.
Before the crash, Pam often wasn’t able to attend her daughters’ practices because she worked late. But soon after the crash the twirling team became one of the many support systems Pam and Ali have relied upon.
“It’s amazing to see this family come together,” said Ali’s coach, Sharyn Falat Attar.
Although Bridget was never able to perform in her first competition, the promising 5-year-old was an excellent marcher, Falat Attar said. The team now dedicates an award each season in Bridget’s name.
‘THEY DIDN’T DIE IN VAIN’
Tim never said goodbye, it was always “catch you later.”
The phrase was a fitting name for a foundation created to honor Tim and Bridget’s legacy by providing scholarships to Hudson County high school kids preparing for college, while also raising awareness about distracted driving.
Pam shares her story with children and adults alike, with the hope that drivers will see the devastating effects that drunk and drugged driving can have.
“I have to think they didn’t die in vain,” she said.
A memorial bench was dedicated to Tim and Bridget O’Donnell.
A candlelight vigil is scheduled for Wednesday evening on the same ball field in Stephen R. Gregg Hudson County Park that O’Donnell walks to remember Tim and Bridget. It’s the same field O’Donnell coached countless games; the same park where a bench was dedicated in memory of the beloved teacher and his little girl.
It’s been a tough year for Pam and Ali, but they’re not saying goodbye.
It’s “catch you later.”
The vigil will begin at 6 p.m. at Stephen R. Gregg Hudson County Park with a balloon and bubble release. Weather permitting, twirlers from Bridget’s team will dedicate a routine in her memory.
Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
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